Beverly Ann Moore

Beverly Ann Moore, three days shy of 82, died in peace and at home in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, as she’d wished, on Friday, November 7, 2025, with her husband, youngest daughter, and the daughter’s son at her bedside. After enduring three years of treatment for metastasizing lung cancer, she was gentled into eternal life by the tender mercies of her God and some palliative help from hospice. Beverly was born in Cortland, New York, the elder of two daughters of the late Goswin and Clementine (Paulitska) Marcin. From her father, a custom bowmaker who had trained as a shipbuilder in Germany, she inherited her creativity, imagination, and lifelong passion for art and architecture. Watching Gos and a brother design and build a cozy cottage on Cayuga Lake for their families ignited her interest, and she took inspiration from his paintings for her own drawings, oils, and watercolors. From her mother, who worked much of her life as a cook, Beverly learned culinary skills and nutrition as well as home and childcare. Warm memories of swimming and waterskiing at the cottage gave her a love of the water that carried her from the Finger Lakes to the Outer Banks, Greek islands, and Cape Cod, anywhere she could walk the shore with her jeans rolled up and her bare feet splashing through the margin of the tide. Beverly is survived by Roger Moore, her grateful husband of 47 years, and five devoted children: three from a previous marriage—Andrea Houlihan, Gerald Houlihan, Jr. (Jorie), and Maureen Houlihan; her two children with Roger are Rachel Moore (James Knittle) and Benjamin Moore (Kacey). She took great delight in being Grandma to Caroline Houlihan, Jack and Madilyn Houlihan, Lucy and Emmett Knittle, and Keller and Juliette Moore. She also relished her role as a staunchly supportive mother-in-law. As the center of her family, its beating heart, Beverly became the model of how to laugh and love. Even during her illness, she’d be on the phone most every day listening to her children’s stories, celebrating their achievements, dispensing her wisdom, crying when they were hurting, laughing at their jokes, and finding fresh ways to lift them up. After high school, Beverly trained as an executive secretary at Katherine Gibbs school in New York City, acquiring business skills of enduring value as she managed her family’s finances, edited Roger’s writing, served as a real estate agent, and trained as an income tax preparer. She also became certified as an EMT. And for several years, she put her mom skills to work as an empathetic school bus driver. In 1976, Beverly was working in advertising in Rochester, New York when she and Roger met. They married two years later in a city park amid the blooming azaleas, driving off the next day for a new life in Saint Louis, then Chicago. In 1985, to be closer to their parents, they moved to Lancaster County, where the two younger kids grew up. Vacations were planned around strengthening family bonds. Having North Carolina beaches just a day’s drive away, the tug of the Atlantic was irresistible. A summer week at Duck, Whalehead, or Corolla Light became a must. In later years, it was a hideaway on Cape Cod that could accommodate a family of 17. In 2010, Beverly and Roger seized an opportunity to discover Greece while Rachel lived there as a Fulbright scholar with her husband James and infant daughter Lucy. For five weeks, they all explored Thessaloniki, climbed the Acropolis in Athens, and soaked up the infinite blue of the Aegean on Sifnos and Milos. Bev increasingly sought out the beauty of the natural world and found joy in “all creatures, great and small,” from trap-door spiders to the family’s cats and a succession of dogs she took everywhere. Once the kids were grown, she became a prodigious reader of contemporary fiction. But she continued to see through her artist’s eyes. And when the grandchildren began arriving, she returned to sewing, working with distinctive patterns and fabrics from the world over. Countless creations flowed from her studio: crib mobiles, flower-girl outfits, dragons, pajamas, Halloween costumes, pants and shirts for the boys, gowns and matching dresses galore for the three youngest girls. Beverly is also survived by her younger (and favorite) sister, Susan Fitts; two nephews, Matthew and Brandon Steele (Sylvia); her beloved cousin, Alan Marcin; and several other cousins and great-nephews. She enjoyed many good times with them. The family is grateful for the priceless support of cherished friends, the professional care and extraordinary kindness of her doctors and nurses at Ann B. Barshinger Cancer Institute, and the 24/7 care and personal warmth of the aides from Central Penn Nursing. Her Memorial Service is planned for 11:00 a.m. Saturday morning, January 10, 2026 at Highland Presbyterian Church, 500 East Roseville Road, Lancaster, PA, with the Rev. Allison Beaulieu officiating. Friends are being received at 10:00 a.m. in the church narthex. In lieu of flowers, those who wish may make memorial contributions to Highland or the Lancaster Farm Sanctuary.